JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Orange shirts filled Success Park in the New Town neighborhood Saturday as Moms Demand Action, local activists and community members gathered to bring awareness to gun violence.
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“I hope that our elected officials will take notice to the people that are here today and hear their voices to at least move forward on some sensible gun measurements,” said Irvin Cohen, executive director of LISC Jacksonville
The park where Saturday’s “Wear Orange” event was held was created as a safe place to help deter violence.
Inside the park, people used chalk to write the names of gun violence victims on the sidewalk.
One of the names was Rhonda Phillips’ son, Leon Bennett, who died in a shooting in Jacksonville Beach in 2018.
“Gun violence has changed my life forever. It’s hard to wake up every day,” Phillips said.
Following recent mass shootings at a supermarket in Buffalo and an elementary school in Texas and an attack at a Tulsa Hospital, President Joe Biden is calling for Congress to pass more gun laws.
Biden wants to ban types of guns like AR-15s and increase the age limit to buy a gun from 18 to 21.
He also wants to issue a federal red-flag law.
Florida’s red-flag law has been touted by supporters as an example of such a law that has saved lives.
RELATED: Florida’s ‘red-flag’ law eyed as example amid gun debate
But not all agree with the idea of restricting gun access.
Eric Friday, General Counsel for Florida Carry, advocates for gun rights and doesn’t agree with Biden’s plan to prevent shootings.
“The right to own, process and carry a firearm is a civil right. It’s such an important right, it’s the second right in the Bill of Rights,” Friday said. “The idea that we are going to prevent crime, prevent mass killings by restricting the type of firearm available to law abiding citizens or by limiting the places where law abiding citizens are allowed to carry a firearm is a fallacy and fiction and demonstrates a lack of logic or real thought.”
Friday advocates instead for the “good guy with a gun” philosophy.
“The only real answer is to allow law-abiding citizens to carry weapons in those places so if a bad person comes in with a weapon, the good guys are able to stop them,” Friday said. “We need to give up the ridiculous, nonsensical idea of gun-free zones.”
He also touted a program to respond to school violence called “FASTER Saves Lives,” a training program to help respond to violent events at schools.